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Actually, the reactions sort of continue the trend from Index of people apparently mistaking the show's genre. With Index people seemed to be expected an romantic action drama (like Shana), but what they got instead was a preachy sci-fi (which I still say is a perfectly acceptable genre on its own, it's just not what people expected). And now, people built up expectations for themselves like "finally, we'll be getting an action series without the preachiness!", and instead the director said that the show would focus on the friendship between the girls. In all cases I think the show will have its fans, but for some reason the English-speaking audience seems to have a real time categorizing this franchise in their minds, or fitting it into the Japanese directors's visions for the respective shows.

Regardless, I think I pretty much agree with you regarding the episode proper.

It's fine focusing on the friendship between the girls... but the formula of:

This episode looks good enough for me. The manga lacks sufficient source material for the anime series and naturally some materials needs to be cooked up, which in this case will the the materials before the swimming pool scene. Secondly this episode also explains Kuroko's brief relation with Misaka (not in the manga) and also serve up more of Kuroko's fantasies.

A fairly good episode. The first part was hilarious with trying to sneak behind Mikoto, but of course running into a dead end . Hopefully we get more of these kinds of moments as the series continues on.

Kuroko really goes all out though. The detailed photo album and the 'computer parts'. It was a pretty good episode for setting up their friendship and how things got rolling. No surprise it involved Kuroko barging into Misaka's room though .

Interesting just seeing how Mikoto interacts with others. With most she is pretty relaxed but clearly reserves special treatment for Touma and Kuroko.

Too bad they lost the handy pool cleaning power. Nice to see a few different abilities that are out there.

I have mixed feelings about this episode. One one hand, it's good that they got this... somewhat pointless chapter out of the way first. Though I will give them credit for actually digging deeper into how Kuroko and Mikoto met, the manga did not do that. And right now it's still funny.

On the other hand, while I do not mind slice of life episodes, I do dislike them being focused on the same Kuroko/Mikoto fanservice over and over again. After two episodes, this will now start giving off a 'Okay, enough, get on with the story' aura if they do not start reducing the amount of scenes. Showing the running gag every now and then is fine, but spending the majority of an episode on it should be a one time event.

Well, all in all it was an enjoyable episode. I just hope episodes like these won't become the norm.

The anime creators decided to put a filler-ish episode so early in the series (episode 2!); I wouldn't mind it if it were e.g. the 7th episode as a cool down episode/pause after a serious/important arc.

As for the second episode itself, I think it's still enjoyable, since there are several funny scenes in this episode. Although I do prefer Mikoto versus Touma over Mikoto x Kuroko. An embarassed/angried Mikoto because of Touma is so much cuter. That why I prefer the manga over the anime for the time-being. Temp score: 7.0/10

I am also missing a more proper introduction of Touma, since not everyone has watch the first series of "Index"; well, I guess they will do a proper introduction of Touma later on (since it's inevitable).

I still look forward to the next episode, since the next and later episodes should follow the plot of the manga more seriously (the OP and especially the ED are hinting at it, right?).

Are you sure? I mean when ZnT animation first appeared I also thought that this is not how it will be - soon drama and serious stuff will kick in, but it never did. JC Staff turned ZnT into nothing but light fanservice comedy and all the serious moments were either cut short or taken out completely.

I would not be surprised if they take MUCH lighter tone with more focus on yuri fanservice than on anything else, in here as well.

Actually, the reactions sort of continue the trend from Index of people apparently mistaking the show's genre. With Index people seemed to be expected an romantic action drama (like Shana), but what they got instead was a preachy sci-fi (which I still say is a perfectly acceptable genre on its own, it's just not what people expected). And now, people built up expectations for themselves like "finally, we'll be getting an action series without the preachiness!", and instead the director said that the show would focus on the friendship between the girls. In all cases I think the show will have its fans, but for some reason the English-speaking audience seems to have a real time categorizing this franchise in their minds, or fitting it into the Japanese directors's visions for the respective shows.

Now that's not fair to say. A lot of us here have read the manga, so we do know what Railgun is about. And this wasn't it. This episode's fanservice and Kuroko-mania were pretty exagerrated over what the manga gives us, nor does the manga have such random stuff as the first half of this episode. (at least the pool cleaning scene was accurate though) It's not like the anime is intended to give us something totally different from the manga, anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ac195

It's fine focusing on the friendship between the girls... but the formula of:

Can get old pretty fast. I'd like a little more substance than that...

The manga definitely has more substance than this, which is why I still have my hopes up. I'm guessing this was just a "hey we need to fill in some time so let's do some random stuff" episode. Doesn't make it less pointless, though. It also doesn't make sense for this to be a "keep things cool just before the storm hits" episode because there's plenty of that in the manga before we get into the meat of the first arc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TCman

The anime creators decided to put a filler-ish episode so early in the series (episode 2!); I wouldn't mind it if it were e.g. the 7th episode as a cool down episode/pause after a serious/important arc.

Fittingly enough for your statement, the pool cleaning scene was a cooldown chapter in the manga after a major fight. Which makes it all the more pointless to have now, really.

Anyway, I found it amusing that Kuroko would have been just fine with Mikoto if only she'd stop cracking onto her all the time, as evidenced by all the scenes where all the other characters get along fine with Mikoto, doing exactly what Kuroko wanted to do.

Uhh... mabye I made a mistake deciding to watch this anime. I thought it was supposed to be kind of like To Aru Majutsu no Index. If it's just going to be fanservice the whole way then forget this.

I'm not really sure why people are calling this episode fanservice anyway. For the most part the shots were fairly innocent, and most overt sexual things were only implied or only referred to in a comic way. *It* was a comic relief episode. And what's wrong with that! I read the manga too, and I approve of it! The To Aru series as a whole lacks a lot of characterization. And now we get people crucifying the anime producers when they attempt to do some.

I'm not really sure why people are calling this episode fanservice anyway. For the most part the shots were fairly innocent, and most overt sexual things were only implied or only referred to in a comic way. *It* was a comic relief episode. And what's wrong with that! I read the manga too, and I approve of it! The To Aru series as a whole lacks a lot of characterization. And now we get people crucifying the anime producers when they attempt to do some.

Except this isn't characterization; it's just random comedy. The manga may not be totally straight-plot, no-nonsense material.......actually wait, the manga does stick to its plot and story. (every chapter after 3 can be connected to the plot of the arc it's on, with the exception of chapter 17 which was a cooldown from the first arc; chapter 2 and 3, while not being about the plot, still had an important event) But anyway, it kept to its story. This turned out to be just an average random comedy episode that can easily be forgotten, while in the manga they kept us hooked with non-random and significant material right from chapter 2. (I say from chapter 2 and not 1 because chapter 1/episode 1 was introductory)

On your first point though, I for one am not calling this episode so much fanservice (although the fanservice is cranked up in comparison to the manga) as much as just plain random and completely insignificant, two things you don't want to be hitting as soon as episode 2 unless it's a mainstay comedy like Hayate no Gotoku.

But again, and I'll probably keep saying this just to keep emphasis on it for those who are starting to doubt, the manga is still really good and isn't random or insignificant like this, so my hopes are still high that they'll pull their act back together next week. To be honest though, even if they don't I'll probably stick with the series anyway, lol.

For now I give it 10 because its just pure fun and that's where the problem start.

At first I saw touma sneaking behind past biribiri and finally a confrontation of the two but what I've got was just a charcoal alley with a space without damage.

Don't get mistaken I have read the manga and I know the flow of the story on it so I was hoping they will keep the comedy from episode one on check but it still continuous on.
For now I find it interesting and fun but if the story doesn't change into some action it will start to bored me.

And some might say the railgun is about friendship but they wrong. Well not completely wrong but railgun also show the monster side of biribiri. Which the anime fail to show yet.

I'm not really sure why people are calling this episode fanservice anyway. For the most part the shots were fairly innocent, and most overt sexual things were only implied or only referred to in a comic way. *It* was a comic relief episode. And what's wrong with that! I read the manga too, and I approve of it! The To Aru series as a whole lacks a lot of characterization. And now we get people crucifying the anime producers when they attempt to do some.

It is fanservice, not "OMG, look, boobies!" fanservice, but KurokoXMikoto fanservice. Fanservice is just that: Something the fans will enjoy. It doesn't have to be boobies, it can be anything from romantic scenes between characters to seeing Mikoto fight an awesome random battle versus Touma.

There are various levels of fanservice, good ones manages to intertwine the service with the character development or plot (quite a few of the manga scenes fall under this category, either being set ups to further the plot or blended in to the point where they don't interfere with the advancement) bad fanservice stalls the plot. This episode barely manages to avoid falling into the later, and that is only because it tells us how and how long ago Mikoto and Kuroko met.

My personal complaint is that they didn't do enough development, we could have been shown more about how they met for example.

To put it into perspective, I dislike the manga chapter this episode is based on more than I do this episode. At least in this episode we learn something about the characters, the manga chapter does not have this saving grace.